Today I will enter the office to tell the woman who writes about women to publish that article about how we

celebrate women around here. I

celebrate women, because I find that I can always make them do favors like that for me. Actually, I find that I can make her do all kinds of favors, if you know what I mean! (it’s between us higher ups). I

celebrate women because, look at the way they are shattering glass ceilings! We empower women here. Never mind that the glass rains on them. It’s a shame the shattered glass leaves scars, I think that I will write a statement about how much I regret that that happens here because I

celebrate women for the relentless warriors that they are who will go to the end of the earth to serve others. Women are just naturally more benevolent than men. I

celebrate women, because she is so committed to serving — I don’t see what she needs to do in order to make a life for herself, to protect herself. Oh! You’re fleeing an abusive spouse? A homophobic family? See? When we empower women, we can keep her off the streets and she might even detain other women for us! I

celebrate women because I celebrate their commitment to make the city more money. Yes, I get that it’s off the backs of poor women; her heart freezes, then her wheels, then she’s pulled off her track. I thought women officers would help the community feel more safe? Anyways! I

celebrate women, because they are even hosting white empowerment podcasts! Making it easier for me, boy, I thought that I had to do this alone, but I am grateful for when women play as team players, so I

celebrate women because they do all of this, what these femini-nazis and angry for no reason black women call “emotional labor”. I do not want to do THAT in this movement work; give me the academic life, the pulpit, the executive status! the glory is more important to me than anything else which is why I

celebrate women because they don’t do it for the money right? They naturally care about other women and kids, Or at least that is what I tell myself so I can keep underpaying them I

celebrate women because they do two-thirds of the world’s work, even though they are half of the population. Women work so damn hard! So I

celebrate women so that I can help make everyone forget that institutions, organizations and churches like my own wringe women dry daily for a higher purpose.

I think this is a cause for celebration, don’t you think? GOSH, I love to call it “celebrating”!

Why? Because a ton of shit happened to me during 2016. I was testing the waters of “organizing” for the first time. I attempted to work with religious communities that expressed a desire to do anti-racist work. I also struggled to find support in school from my peers and my teachers.

I experienced a lot of pain within these and many other moments in 2016. I was gaslighted by people who claimed to care about the black freedom struggle. I attended tension filled demonstrations and have been in the presence of violence. I’ve had my creative and intellectual work unfairly judged by parties who couldn’t see my work rightly. 2016 was also the year that my university’s Peace Studies department used police presence to intimidate me into compliance when I rose concerns about racism and sexism in the program’s curriculum.

2016 left me burned and wasted.

You could even say that 2016 broke my spirit. In retrospect, 2017 went a whole lot better for me, even though the first year of Trump’s presidency brought with it so much maliciousness.

I don’t know if I have yet to fully recover from what 2016 did to my mind, my body, my spirit, but most days, I expect myself to be better by now. It’s been over a whole year, after all.

I tell myself that I shouldn’t be afraid of picking up my camera, taking new clients, doing new gigs… That my fear should be gone by now. I should be better. I shouldn’t still be carrying around a fear of running into ministers and activists who hurt me deeply. I shouldn’t be carrying around the fear of running into members of other organizations and coalitions that didn’t do their part to respect me and see my rightly. But, I do.

I don’t always know what to do about these fears. I try to power through them, but it doesn’t seem like enough on the days that I can’t.

me, in the beginning of 2017 on a roadtrip.

As I work a few hours during the week, I get to enjoy roaming the isles of the library in solitude. I use this opportunity to catch up on podcasts that I’ve been wanting to listen to and I also get a chance to discover and listen to new ones as I quietly shelve books (and occasionally shed a few laughs here and there).

One of the more meaningful podcasts that I’ve been able to listen to this year has been AFFIRM, a podcast from the website Redefine Enough. Between listening to AFFIRM and taking a break from Twitter, I feel like I’ve been receiving the breath of air that I need… and will reluctantly say that I deserve.

I say reluctant, because I often forget a lot of what I say that I believe. Or, I forget to take seriously certain truths about mental health and caring for myself. I don’t always believe that the things that I whole-heartedly want for other people, I deserve as well. And so, it’s been so helpful for me to listen to the podcast and to listen to the host describe and name things that I forget or experiences I don’t always have words for.

One of the topics in the podcast that I found to be very affirming was the topic of “secondary trauma”. Essentially, secondary trauma isn’t trauma that you personally experienced, it’s trauma that you may have witnessed or trauma that you hear about. Trauma therapists and other healers often experience secondary trauma from listening to people’s stories and witnessing their pain.

I’m a person that typically listens with enthusiasm… but I’ve noticed my capacity to listen growing less and less. I have noticed within my body the desire to retreat into my own personal space. My capacity to hold others has shrunk. I often fear that this has meant that I have grown to be less big-hearted, less caring. I think to myself that I must be selfish now (which is the worst thing to be if you’ve grown up being told your worth is defined by how well or how much you care for others). However, the podcast reminded me that secondary trauma is still trauma. It makes sense for me to be tired after listening to others share their own pain. It makes sense for me to not always have the capacity to listen to others if I myself am in a dark place.

The podcast also affirmed a lot of my own experiences and struggles with mental health and anxiety. Within the last year, I’ve struggled to leave my house and have felt the kind of tiredness that lingers and overstays her welcome.

I believe now that my body has been shutting down… it’s been telling me that I need help, that I need to find healing and care. I couldn’t see the messages that my body was giving me: the lack of energy, the inability to leave home, the lack of excitement that I found sitting on my chest when I woke up in the mornings… I couldn’t understand the messages my body was giving me because I couldn’t find affirmation from myself or from many others that I was carrying a lot and that a lot was hurting me. In my mind, I downplayed everything. But, between Twitter drama, racism, sexism, biphobia, spiritual abuse, family trauma, rejection, life-changes, loss, flashbacks — all of it was affecting me. And most of it still affects me.

There were days when flashbacks made it difficult for me to leave the house. I would feel the emotions of the flashbacks hit my body right before placing my hand on the door. I’d find myself winded from the pain of those memories and needing to recover from the flashback. Then I would be late for something. And then, I couldn’t tell anyone about why I was late, because we don’t talk about mental health in our society well. Not in activist spaces, not in church… many spaces still hold stigmas, discomfort or general cluelessness around mental health.

Listening to women of color affirm each other’s mental and emotional health is doing something to me. I don’t know if I can call it “healing” necessarily but it’s encouraging me enough to get out of bed and to feel like I can do something about my anxiety and depression. The women on the podcast are reminding me that I deserve rest and care. They are reminding me that my trauma and pain matter, that the world’s bigotry, interpersonal messiness and systematic injustices affect me because I am human. They are reminding me that my trauma and pain won’t just just go away overnight. Trauma doesn’t just magically disappear. Healing and care has to happen.

Thankfully, I am in a place where I am seeking therapeutic support. I’m also trying to take advantage of this slower time of my life by making sure that I fight for my care time. I want to enjoy this life. I want to be happy. I want to have meaningful relationships, and I want to be filled with purpose and love when I do my work.

I think I deserve that.

A few of my favorite personal affirmations:

Rest is as important as work. Rest makes magic that work can’t do.

What I went through is real. I am not weak for feeling pain from my past, no matter how far back. I matter, my pain matters, and I deserve to have my pain attended to and healed. I deserve to be cared for and loved.

I deserve to be celebrated and respected in my work.

I have enough faith for today. I am spiritual/religious/Christian enough even if others can’t see it because of their religious boxes. I don’t have to do more to prove it.

I deserve to be celebrated, loved and respected in a religious community.

I have a lot to offer and to give, even when I don’t always feel like it.

Please check out AFFIRM podcast if you get a chance, especially if you are a woman of color. Also, AFFIRM should not take the place of real therapeutic help. I grew up being afraid of therapy and being taught that it was bad and meant something was “wrong” with me. If you are intimidated or scared of therapy, I’m always willing to talk to you. AFFIRM is great about addressing fears about mental health and reaching out to a therapist.

January has felt both long and short all at once. I’m in the last stretch of my undergraduate career (AT LAST!). I’ve been working on my undergraduate education for about 6 to 7 years now and will be just on the cusp of 25 years old when I graduate this May. As graduation approaches, I am experiencing both the excitement and anxieties that come with the reality that a new season is approaching, one laced with many new freedoms and uncertainties.

Part of the reason that January has felt somewhat long and short simultaneously might be attributed to the fact that a lot of new things have happened to me since the New Year.

Take a look:

I started the capstone course for my Gender Studies program. In this course, I’m currently doing research on a topic of my choice (IT’S ALWAYS CHURCH STUFF, because I can’t stop writing about church stuff). Later I’ll be writing a 15 page paper on church stuff that topic. Maybe I’ll publish a shorter version here because church stuff.

Attended the Mystic Soul Project conference! I had an amazing time and it was a great opportunity to see old friends and make new ones. The Mystic Soul Project conference is a POC-centered conference on mysticism, activism and healing. I’m pretty excited about the work that Mystic Soul is doing because the intersection of spirituality and activism is something that I care about very deeply. It is an intersection that I want to continue to be more intentional about exploring as I continue to discern my role within movements for justice.

I’ve returned to working at the library once again for a few hours each week. What I love the most about this job is that I get to listen to music for four hours straight while sorting books and finding questionable titles, such as this one:

*insert thinking emoji*

Early January, I began my studies and readings for the Reformation Project 2018 Chicago Cohort. I have been doing this for a month now, which has required me to explore content that both affirms and challenges the question of LGBTQ inclusion within the Church. The purpose of the cohort is to prepare and train those participating in the cohort to be able to have discussions with the Church about how LGBTQ identity, inclusion and justice are relevant to the Christian faith.

I’ve taken up a new job at Level Ground as a staff writer. I’ll be working on an online publication about pop culture and spirituality that will launch this March. I’ll let you know when it goes live! I’m excited for the opportunity to write regularly for a publication.

Other things:

I’ve been attempting to read more fiction, memoirs, and graphic novels. At the moment, I am reading “Hunger” by Roxane Gay. I just finished a graphic novel called “Seconds”, which I found to be very timely and important to me. Reading novels, poetry, and memoirs this season will be helpful for me, as I have been struggling a lot with attention and focus, as well as with expressing myself, since so much of my work

I’m also trying to reassess the role of photography in my life. I’m an art school drop out. I couldn’t stand the competition, but after attending Mystic Soul conference, I feel more convicted about the role of art and culture making in creating more just societies.

A friend and I have been working on a new collaborative project called New Wineskins. It’s a podcast on Christian faith, culture, politics and relationships. I’m excited to share more about it once the time comes.

I’ve taken up journaling as a personal practice once more.

I’ve submitted a few applications for graduate school (*coughs* seminary *coughs*) but am contemplating taking a year off as well to rest and to focus on writing and creating.

I’ve disappointed myself with some of the ways that I have failed to live up to some of my expectations for the new year. However, I struggle with focus and concentration and have been considering approaching the new year differently. I decided that I wanted to focus on an intention, instead of a list of things that I need to do, and I also want to record my victories — both small and large — because I have a tendency to forget and underestimate what I’ve done and learned. So, my intention for this year is to ask for what I need, and to be more aware of what I desire, so that I can ask for what I want. 2018 is and will be the year of asking.

a section of my personal journal.

This little space in the corner of the internet–this update, if you will–is my way of reminding myself of my growth and accomplishments. And well… you’re being kept up on this, too. This isn’t my personal journal after all (and I’m glad it’s not. HA!)

I plan on calling these little updates “Scribbling in the Living Room”, as I imagine myself being found by you, as you may wonder what I am up to. When I’m not working, at school, or writing on here, I might be scribbling in a planner on my living room floor, devouring a book under the blankets, or deeply immersed in a timely conversation with a friend or stranger at the library. These are the everyday moments of inspiration, learning and reflection that you don’t see, and that most of us engage in. Our brain is working in the mundane moments in between when “life happens”. And yet, in those mundane moments, life, and questions on how to bring more of it forth, are still happening. So then, if you need a little update on what me and my brain are up to, you can look out for blog posts beginning with “Scribbling in the Living Room”.